Clean Energy Community News

High Impact Actions Completed (1,400 points earned)
Benchmarking, Energy Code Enforcement Training, LED Street Lights, Unified Solar Permit

Known as the Adirondack village on Lake Pleasant, Speculator is a village focused on tourism and outdoor sports. Its decorative street lights have been upgraded to LEDs, with Mayor Jeannette Barrett (left) leading the effort.

Town officials also decided to upgrade all village facilities with LED lighting with a boost from a $5,000 NYSERDA award.  "Given the complexity and costliness of converting our decorative streetlights to LED--it was not a simple bulb swap as we had to hire an electrician--it was a easy decision to use these monies to complete our lighting projects," Mayor Barrett said.▪️

Clean Energy Coordinators, from left: Carlie Leary, Nancy Bernstein, and Shawnea Hull

High Impact Actions Completed (2,400 points earned)

Benchmarking, Clean Energy Upgrades, Community Campaigns, Energy Code Enforcement Training, LED Street Lights, Unified Solar Permit.

Energy Champions 

The Pompey Town Hall heat pump project was notable in that the town officials oversaw conversion of the Town Hall from propane heating/hot water to cold climate air source heat pumps for heating and electric resistance for hot water. 

John Shaheen (left), a clean energy champion for the town and member of the planning board, reports that “our goal is to improve energy efficiency on Town facilities thereby lowering the tax burden on Town residents.” In the heat pump conversion, the town recently replaced aging propane furnaces and associated central air conditioning equipment. A number of aging windows were replaced and air sealing was completed in order to tighten up the building envelope. Lighting in both the Town Hall and the Highway Garage has been converted to LEDs, along with town street lights. The Town recently partnered with a local HVAC contractor to conduct a community campaign encouraging residents to improve the efficiency of their homes and adopt heat pumps for heating/cooling.

The Town is currently in the process of completing an energy audit of the Highway Garage to identify opportunities for energy efficiency improvements for the future.▪️

High Impact Actions Completed (3,300 points earned)

Clean Fleets, Community Campaigns, Energy Code Enforcement Training, LED Street Lights, Legislation and Regulation, Transportation and Landscaping.

Energy Champions

Jeff Leenhout, Town Supervisor (at left), and Sarah Watermen, Sustainability Engineer are at the forefront of the Town's energy saving efforts.

The Town's Energy and Environmental Conservation Committee educates residents, researches new initiatives, and encourages the Town to act. The Town also is in a better position due to the help of a local resident group called Color Penfield Green. This group brings new initiatives and actions to the Town’s attention and helps the Town complete actions through education and their own actions.

The Town started investing in streetlights in 1999, when town officials purchased them directly from Rochester Gas & Electric and replaced the inefficient mercury vapor lights with more efficient high-pressure sodium (HSP) fixtures. In 2018, the Town began swapping the HSP fixtures with eve more efficient LED ones to further reduce consumption and cost. Additional funding allowed the Town to complete the transition to LED streetlights in 2023, and now the Town plans to begin the transition to LED lighting within its buildings.▪️

High Impact Actions (1,000 points earned)

Bench-marking, Community Campaigns, Energy Code Enforcement Training; LED Street Lights; Unified Solar Permit.

Energy Champions

Town Supervisor Russ Pokorny (left)

The Town’s 35kW solar array on Street Road is complete. It will spend down the remaining funds from a $130,000 NYSERDA Clean Energy Communities grant the town received in 2017. It offsets about 80% of the town's electric needs and is on pace to save the Town $15,000 a year.

Large scale solar development in Knox is being responsibly controlled by the Knox planning board. A one-year moratorium on new applications for large arrays is underway so the planning board can learn more about advances in technologies and best practices for permitting. 

The Town-owned solar array will offset most electricity costs for the Town Hall, park buildings and grounds, highway garage, transfer station and museum. As utility costs keep rising, the Town's savings will increase. Another initiative comes from the Agricultural Advisory Committee, which continues to find ways to help farmers and is now considering a program to graze sheep to control vegetation at the Street Road solar array without having to use more expensive equipment and personnel, and to provide an opportunity for a farmer.▪️

Clean Energy Coordinators, from left: Tara Donadio, Haley Balcanoff, Josh Dranoff

High Impact Actions Completed (5,100 points earned):

Benchmarking, Clean Fleets, Community Campaigns, Community Choice Aggregation, Energy Code Enforcement Training, LED Street Lights, NYStretch Energy Code and PACE Financing.

Energy Champions

Town Supervisor Liz Feldman (right)

Supervisor Feldman's favorite climate actions are the campaigns "where we help people conserve energy and lower their overhead at the same time," she says. "My favorite of those is the grid rewards program because anybody can do it without having to invest first. As a municipality, the LED street lights and electric vehicles have saved us quite a lot of money."

The PACE financing Is a great tool to help people be able to afford the sustainability opportunities that are out there, and the town is happy to be able to partner on this opportunity, as well, the supervisor said.

"Adopting the stretch energy code and having our building department take the energy code enforcement training is another way we can keep our community moving forward to combat climate change, be more sustainable and do our part help New York State meet their goals," Supervisor Feldman added.▪️

Clean Energy Coordinators, from left: Eleanor Peck, Liz Sun

High Impact Actions Completed   (1,200 points earned)

Benchmarking, EV Community Campaigns, LED Street Lights

Energy Champions

Martha Clarvoe, Climate Smart Community Task Force Coordinator (left)

The Town of Hartwick recently completed an EV Community Campaign. Their education work included public presentations, an EV car show, and an EV campaign that ran for two years. As the community is relatively small; six EVs were purchased. The Town is looking into installing EV charging stations if officials can find a suitable location. 

“We plan to use the grant for the Hartwick Conservation Advisory Committee Fund to complete community energy efficiency projects such as a Flex Tech audit for the highway buildings and Town Hall, LED lighting in the community center and highway building, and recycling bins in the community park," said Ms. Clarvoe. "We think it’s going to generate energy savings, cost savings, GHG emission reduction, and lead to other clean energy projects for our community."▪️

Clean Energy Coordinators, from left: Samantha Francisco and Amanda Whalen

High Impact Actions Completed (1,600 points earned)

Benchmarking, Energy Code Enforcement Training, LED Street Lights, Unified Solar Permit

Energy Champions Include:

Supervisor Tim Hubbard (at right)

Jason Blizzard, Principal Engineering Aide

The most consequential Town energy project of late has been the LED street lighting conversion.  This was completed in June of 2020 and included decorative and overhead lights.  "With this conversion, we saw a savings of almost $200,000 per year," said Jason Blizzard.

The Town also is very active in Climate Smart Communities. "We teamed up with the Riverhead Environmental Advisory Committee and became the first municipally operated Food Scrap Drop-Off Location on Long Island on May 11, 2023.  As of today, we have diverted over 20,000 lbs. of food waste from incinerators and are using the food scraps to create compost at one of our sites," Blizzard said. Riverhead Environmental Advisory Committee has been a "huge help" in all aspects of the Town's composting efforts, he added.▪️

Clean Energy Coordinators, from left: Sarah Oral, David Tepper, Andrew Manitt